Hydroponics Trough
crossroads:hydroponics_trough|crossroads:progress/path/witchcraft
crossroads:hydroponics_trough
The <item>Hydroponics Trough/$ is a way to automate farming of basically any plant type (or mushroom) other than trees. It is usually less efficient than a dedicated farm purpose-built for the specific plant, but the same <item>hydroponics trough/$ setup can be used for any plant.
It consumes Fertilizer Solution (which is made in a <item><link:essentials:witchcraft/formulation_vat>formulation vat/$).
A single seed of the plant of interest goes in the input slot (it will not be consumed), and the <item>hydroponics trough/$ will consume fertilizer solution to produce the plant.
Items can only be removed from the output by automation while the <item>hydroponics trough/$ has a redstone signal, which opens the <item>hydroponics trough/$. While opened by a redstone signal, any fertilizer solution in the <item>hydroponics trough/$ will be vented, wasting it instantly. As a full tank of fertilizer solution can be expensive, an efficient design will open the <item>hydroponics trough/$ as rarely as possible, and will have as little fertilizer solution in the machine as possible when it is opened.
For most plants (any non-nether, non-underwater, non-fungus plant), they require light. The <item>hydroponics trough/$ will only produce items while it has light level 9 or higher. Artificial light (ex. torchlight) is fine.
<thing><link:essentials/circuits>Circuits/$ measure the fullness of the item output slots, as a value from 0 to 15.